I just installed a nice dualboot setup on my brand spankin' new 1.33 GHz Powerbook (still got that new laptop smell *sniiiiiifffff* ah). To paraphrase from an AA meeting, "Long time linux-user, first-time ppc linux-user".

Anyway, with the exception of the framebuffer splash, which I get the impression is broken for now, unless I use an older kernel, everything's great. Of course, that means one thing...time to talk eye candy. I wanted to know if there was any way to improve (*subjective-term-alert!!!*) the appearance of the yaboot selection screen. It's so boring, and so tiny.

Is there a way? I mean I know of course, that I can change the fg and bg colors, but I want more..._________________I RTFM already, damnit, and the manual writer needs to be smacked.

message=message_filename
Specifies a file containing a message that is displayed before
the boot prompt. You may specify either a plain pathname, in
which case the default device and partition will be derived from
the device= and partition= lines in the global section of
yaboot.conf, or you can specify a full OpenFirmware device path,
the file may be on any yaboot(8) supported filesystem. The mes-
sage file must be plain ASCII text with UNIX newlines. Note:
only the first 2000 bytes of this file will be read.

And this is my personal yaboot.msg with the proper colour codes, the "gentoo" comes out in gentoo-purple, the "linux" in white and the prompt below in green. Copy, paste & have fun

hmm, I tried this, and the color shows up as the escape codes. It might be mistyping on my part, but the other big this is that it only shows up when booting to linux. I was hoping it would appear above the boot menu. It only shows up above the boot prompt when linux is chosen..._________________I RTFM already, damnit, and the manual writer needs to be smacked.

I was hoping it would appear above the boot menu. It only shows up above the boot prompt when linux is chosen...

Yeah this is for the secondary boot prompt only. The first stage boot is a CHRP bootscript written in Forth that you can find in /usr/lib/yaboot/ofboot. With a bit of hacking I am sure you can improve upon the looks of that one as well, but I'm not sure if it's really worth it. You can certainly easily change the text strings though. OpenFirmware and Forth manuals are easily found on google if you are interested.

In any case yaboot is currently being completely rewritten with yaboot 2.0 (see http://penguinppc.org/bootloaders/yaboot/) so maybe there will be some new features in the cosmetic department as well in the future

I was just poking around that site again, and if you navigate to the unstable (1.99) version directory on ftp.penguinppc.org, it looks like the last modifications are almost a year old (!) and the one before that is a half a year before. Is this just because they moved to tla, or has development stalled?_________________I RTFM already, damnit, and the manual writer needs to be smacked.

until someone volunteers to help code prom-libc and finish that, there
will be no progress towards 2.0, nor any new features.

nobody will help, and I don't have the time.
[...]
see list archives of several lists, ive tried to recruit help before,
to no avail.
[...]
the yaboot 1.x code is complete and utter crap. its totally
unmaintainable.

there is nothing at all simple about doing a splash screen.

So looks like we won't be getting nice splash screens and powerful GRUB-like shells from yaboot2 anytime soon.

No because from start to finish I didn't like it. I didn't like the way I had to install it. I don't like the lack of options. And I don't like the way it looks. Not to mention I can't change anything about it. That's why I don't like Yaboot. Even the author knows it's shit._________________It is the fate of operating systems to become free.
- Neal Stephenson

If only You and Dead people can read hex, how many people can read hex?

No because from start to finish I didn't like it. I didn't like the way I had to install it. I don't like the lack of options. And I don't like the way it looks. Not to mention I can't change anything about it. That's why I don't like Yaboot. Even the author knows it's shit.

I don't like Yaboot because you have to do a "ybin" everytime you update yaboot.conf, ala LILO. I used to despise LILO though, so I'm prejudiced. Anyway, it's my first time seeing the splash screen at the top of this thread, and damn, that is some cool shit. MUCH better than those "pretty" splash screens. Very l33t!